Tuesday, December 08, 2015

Get On Up!...

#adversity Adversity is everywhere. It’s relative. It's subjective. One person’s where will I sleep tonight is another person’s who will I sleep WITH tonight? I’ve lived enough dog years and summers to learn that it’s not what you do during the good times but who you are during the rough times that defines you. We have all faced adversity in some form or another and we’ve all dealt with it in our own way. The good news is; no reaction is “wrong”, it's just “yours”. You are the ONLY one that was in those shoes at that precise moment, so no one can truly judge your response or actions. (Although they will, I PROMISE you!!) The cool thing is, as humans, we tend to, naturally “get up”, no matter what the challenge, no matter what the hurdle. We get knocked down, we get up, simple! Watch the news (not too much though); the rape victim testifies against her assailant, the tornado victim vows to rebuild, cancer victims fight…the point is, we are hard wired not to give up, to fight. We admire and respect it in others. No news story is ever shown where the shop owner, after 30 years, is fire bombed and vows to…move to another town and change careers. We Fight! ("WE Rebuild!!) Now, don’t politicize my little rant, I’m not referring to world politics, just personal stuff. Because, to me, it's all personal. It's all little stuff. Close to the ground. Don't forget the world is pretty much mostly humans. Red blooded,oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus, humans. We also have a little potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine and magnesium...humans...and humans fight back! We (meaning all humans) fight. We fight for ourselves, for our own self preservation, for our families, for our loved ones but we also fight for the less fortunate, the down-trodden, the weak, the embattled…we fight for those that we feel can’t fight for themselves. I love that about human beings, they don’t quit, they keep coming. They're the heroes in every cowboy movie you ever watched. Most humans don’t like crooks, bullies, racists, bigots, misogynists, the New England Patriots (JOKE!!) Seriously, most humans, that I’ve observed from near and far, are for justice and fair play. At least, fair play from their perspective. I think it’s because on some level, we’re all looking at their situation and picturing ourselves “getting up” from that. We’re rooting for them. “Don’t quit!” Remember the movie Rocky? The first one? Rocky lost! But we love Rocky because he didn’t quit, so he WON! You get knocked down, get up, get knocked down again, get up. Adversity…Walt Disney, supposedly (I say "supposedly" because all info comes from the internet now and you have to be VERY careful!!) said, “You may not realize it, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.” Abraham Lincoln said "I don't care what y'all say, I ain't giving up on freeing me some slaves! Now, who wants to wrassle? " (actually, Lincoln didn't say that as far as I know but thanks to the internet, someone will probably share that quote as a meme with a picture of Lincoln and I will be THRILLED!!) I’m just like you, I’ve had my share of Adversity. You and I could sit together and share stories and “one-up” each other on what we’ve been through, but at the end of it, you’ve gone through your stuff, I’ve gone through mine, it ain’t the same (although it might be), we both have the scars to show for it, and, if we’re sitting together talking about it, it means that we’ve made it through that. Pretty cool huh? “Oh you think that scar’s bad, look at this one…” Get up. I was going to write a blog about what me and the band went through this weekend with car trouble and stuff but some kid lost her fight with cancer, some family died in a bombing in Syria, a man lost his wife in a car accident, there's some really hungry folks, some people that will be sleeping outside in the cold tonight, somebody's telling their family something that's gonna change everything in all of their worlds…there’s real problems in the world that God has seen fit to protect me from! Adversity. Get Up.